Amazon et al. in search of innovation

The Sirens of phones found another victim. Amazon is the latest voyager hearing the sweet voices promising the fame and riches for the brave heroes.  As reported by Reuters (and many others) “Amazon plans smartphone comeback more than a decade after Fire Phone flop.” Amazon is working on a device, code name 'Transformer', to be “a potential mobile personalization device that can sync with home voice assistant Alexa and serve as a conduit to Amazon customers.”

A year ago, Amazon reintroduced the new model of Alexa, the Alexa+ - a venture started in 2014 which has already swallowed billions of dollars with no visible sign of success. The new model of Alexa is bent on learning everything about you so it can 'read your mind' and fulfill all your (shopping) dreams.

The problem? Alexa+ is just a speaker sitting at your home on the kitchen counter patiently waiting for your arrival. What you do for the rest of the day is a mystery to her - yes, to 'her', because Amazon decided to anthropomorphise the device. “Alexa+ is your new personal AI assistant that gets things done—she’s smarter, more conversational, more capable, and free with Prime.”

To fill the vacuum, Amazon decided to create a device, a device which would be with you for the rest of the time so you could truly become one with Alexa+.

You might remember my post “The 3rd device” documenting the attempts by Apple, Facebook, Google, Humane, Rabbit and the still secret OpenAI project in collaboration with Jony Ive.

All these projects are facing the same problems. As it stands we are running a) out of human interfaces where we can insert or attach a revolutionary new device. Glasses and googles were tried and not catching up. Ear buds, but connected to what? Smell and taste ... not enough bandwidth. b) out of ideas for what tasks these devices should be doing for us. Either constantly listening or interrupting us.

But the biggest barrier of entry are the incumbents - Apple and Google (Samsung) with their devices and app stores.

What would the new 'phone' or device do that would make people add a device to their lives, or do the unthinkable and make the switch? What would Amazon have to include in this new device for people to even consider it? Maybe Amazon will give it away for free or make it supported by ads so that before (or during) any phone call you will listen to commercials. Would Amazon create a new operating system for the phone - similar to Huawei's attempt with Harmony to start a new app store?

On the device side - we went from Nokia/Motorola phones to Blackberry to iPhone. Since then, nothing. Ok, maybe something - watches, tablets, mood rings ...  And this is the difficult question which so far nobody has come up with an answer for. How would the new device be different from what we have - format or functionality? What would be the functionality which can't be obtained through the Apple store?

The innovation drought is even more obvious when you read a transcript of conversation with top guys at Apple where Mr. Cook, CEO of Apple says - “Yes, the technologies of the future will change.” “Yes, there will be more products and more categories. All of those things are true, but the things that made Apple Apple will be the same for the next 50 years, and the next 100 and the next 1,000.”

That's not innovation, that's a pyramid building exercise to get money from future tourists.

Right now, all these companies are mesmerized by the term AI, a technology at its infancy, barely ready for existence outside of research labs. What's missing is the 'it' factor which would be using this technology to create a new experience and the wow-factor similar to the moment when Steve Jobs showed on stage the first iPhone.

The recurrent pattern? Despite all the proclamations about AI and the new amazing possibilities in the near future, all we hear is that we - the regular people - won't be needed. AI will take over and will run our lives. People who say that have no imagination and are only extrapolating thoughts based on the past. And they will be soon forgotten because they are already part of that past. That's good news. More good news is that there is an opportunity for the rest of us to come up with something truly useful which will provide benefits to all of us. A product of human imagination.